Abie Green
NYU Law Center on Race, Inequality, and the Law
USA (New York), Haiti, Central America
My name is Abie Green and I am a senior at Gallatin, set to graduate in January 2019. I am studying intersectionality, human rights, and the law with a minor in American Sign Language. This summer I will be working with NYU Law’s Center on Race, Inequality, and the Law on a project on immigration law in the context of issues of race, discrimination, and foreign policy, both historically and currently. The center does various work and projects around issues of race, discrimination, and the law.
For this summer, I will be focusing on the top three countries receiving Temporary Protected Status (TPS) within the US that have not been renewed under the Trump administration. These countries are Haiti, El Salvador, and Honduras. I will be working with communities from these countries in New York and will take trips to Haiti and either El Salvador or Honduras to coordinate with organizations that are a part of this immigration issue. The goal is to get the groups to coalesce on their needs and to create a plan of action that suits these needs in order to best serve those who have lost TPS.
I am interested in the unique but more often than not, shared history of US imperialistic intervention in these countries. This has contributed to the destabilizing of these countries and many of the problems TPS recipients have fled from, along with a history of racist immigration policy and immigration decisions based on foreign policy needs, which have also marred all of these countries’ histories with the US.
It will be interesting as I start to work with these communities to see what they believe the major challenges are, to see the needs they prioritize, and to discover what legal pathways are even legitimate options for people of countries that have lost TPS, particularly given the fraught history of asylum and refugee policies. My biggest challenge will likely be coordinating between these three groups, particularly in bringing Haiti into the discussion, given cultural differences. I am a bit nervous throwing myself into these communities but I am hoping to prove that I want to work with them in pushing forward their agenda.